THE LORD OF THE RINGS STRATEGY BATTLE GAME WAR IN

THE LORD OF THE RINGS STRATEGY BATTLE GAME
The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game is an excellent game for depicting skirmishes involving the
soldiers and warriors of Middle-Earth, inspired by the Heroes of the Age. It is less effective at conveying
a sense of huge armies vying for the future of the Free West in the face of Sauron’s endless hordes of
slaves and allies.
WAR IN MIDDLE EARTH
The intention of these rules is to adapt the excellent system that Games Workshop have created for the
Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game to allow large numbers of figures to be involved in battles that
don’t get bogged down in complicated manoeuvres and dice rolling.
Why Use these Rules?
It is possible to fight big battles of 1000 points or more with the standard rules, but the game can slow
down and that is where these rules come in. Instead of every warrior being an individual he is grouped
into a unit, called a Company, and the army is formed of these Companies, whether they are disciplined
units under an appointed officer or war-bands held together by a chieftain or strongman.
Most of the standard LotR SBG rules are still used, but they are slightly amended to take account of
dealing with bodies of troops.
New Ideas
The biggest changes from the standard game are “Who Wins a Fight” and the introduction of the idea of
troops being Unsettled. Being Unsettled means they aren’t scared enough yet to flee, but they are
nervous and not working at full efficiency, usually because they have just been beaten in a fight or
charged by a monster.